The Legend of the R-Rated Gaming Comedy

Cover Story: A look back at the few games that ever dared to go raunchy.

H

umor has always been present in games, just like it has always been present in every form of media. The very idea of Super Mario Bros. -- two chubby plumbers jumping to unrealistic heights and stomping turtles -- is whimsical and silly. The LEGO games are wonderful bastions of humor, with silent (and more recently voiced) cut scenes that contain impeccable comic timing. But the one thing that is largely absent from the world of video games is the notion of the R-rated comedy, a vulgar adult-oriented work that has a bunch of a dick-and-fart jokes usually produced by Judd Apatow. That style of movie has had something of resurgence in films recently.

In 2009, The Hangover, a modest $35 million movie, shattered box office records for the niche genre by making more than $275 million domestically and close to $500 million worldwide. In the year it came out, The Hangover outgrossed Star Trek and kiddie schlock such as Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Squeakquel. Two years later, the sequel launched to an equally impressive gross. Clearly, a market for raunchy, offensive humor exists, but for the most part, that market has been untapped in video games.

Mostly, that style of humor shows up as a sideshow in action games. The Grand Theft Auto series generally weaves in biting social satire, while a variety of action games mix in some raunchy humor. You can look no further than last month's Devil May Cry reboot for a bloody, action-packed game with a bunch of ribald humor mixed in.

One of THQ's final salvos, Saints Row: The Third, featured a lot of over-the-top humor that wouldn't be out of place littering the worlds of movies starring Will Ferrell or Vince Vaughn. With in-game activities such as Professor Genki's Super Ethical Reality Climax, a ridiculous parody of Japanese game shows, Saints Row was definitely comical. Even just the presentation of the game has a delightful tongue-in-cheek manner.

The Wii even has a few games that fall into the ridiculous, tongue-in-cheek field. Sega's 2009 releases MadWorld and The House of the Dead: Overkill were ultraviolent, but also featured cutting humor. Overkill is a mockery of the grindhouse style of movies, and actually held the record for the amount of times f*** was uttered until Mafia II, a much wordier game, took the record shortly after. The light-gun game, which was later ported to PlayStation 3, features inane humor and references to the villain having sexual relations with his mother. On the other hand, Platinum Games' MadWorld was postured as The Running Man as announced by Greg Proops and John Dimaggio (better known as the voice of Futurama's Bender). It sprinkled the duo's amazing voiceovers with violence so brutal it had to be in black and white (and red).

But the humor in the aforementioned games are all byproducts of action games more focused on combat than humor. The newly acquired Ubisoft-published game, South Park: The Stick of Truth, seems to be a potential showcase for how comedy can be weaved into gameplay. South Park is the longest-running TV-MA-rated show on television, after all, so the realization of that vision in gaming could present new ways that the style of humor could be woven into gameplay.

Most of the early examples of bawdy humor were located in adventure games. Leisure Suit Larry, created by the adventure game wizards at Sierra Entertainment, was presented as racy, as the goal of the game was to get with women, but it also extremely funny and well written. Original creator Al Lowe is teaming up with N-Fusion Interactive to make a remake, due out in March. But still, Leisure Suit Larry doesn't quite hit the style of humor in movies such as The Hangover, The 40-Year-Old Virgin, or Bridesmaids.

However, a Nintendo-published game does hit that style and level of off-color humor: Conker's Bad Fur Day. Arguably Rare's masterpiece, Conker's Bad Fur Day is the exact opposite of the company's previous work on Banjo-Kazooie and Diddy Kong Racing. Starring a cutesy squirrel, Conker's Bad Fur Day is rife with movie references and overt scatological and sexual jokes. If you somehow missed The Great Mighty Poo, an epic boss that is an opera-singing pile of crap, then you owe it to yourself to watch this video (NSFW).

While teases have shown up occasionally, it's tough to craft innovative and fun gameplay around the vulgar hilarity present in film's R-rated comedies. That's chiefly because of how passive those works are, and action, or specifically interaction, is what is needed to make a video game work. But surely someone out there can take something like Kevin Smith's Clerks and make a lackadaisical store simulation out of it, or maybe the next zombie game pulls more from Shaun of the Dead than Dawn of the Dead. Instead of going Clint Eastwood, a western-themed video game could be like Blazing Saddles. Comedy in games too often is pushed to the back, as more of a sideshow, and it seems like now is as good a time as any to bring the laughs up to the forefront.

Neal Ronaghan played the Beach multiplayer in Conker's Bad Fur Day at last PAX East and while it was super dark, it was still fun and really damn funny. Check out more of his writing at Nintendo World Report and Nintendo Force, and also be sure to watch him attempt to host a Nintendo-themed version of Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? at PAX East 2013 (Sunday at 11 a.m. in the Arachnid!).

Comments (16)

Conker

That was one of the first M-Rated games I remember playing, it was so innapropriate and I played it when I wasn't supposed to! It's one of my favorite N64 titles, and the multiplayer was really fun. The spoofs are just hilarious.

LOL

Great article!!! It makes me so glad I bought Conker's Bad Fur Day back in the days. It's a great game with a wicked sense of adult humor. When done right, games like BFD can be worth playing. I also took a chance with Madworld and it's pretty good in its own right.....maybe I should pick up HotD: Overkill as well.

Conker's Bad Fur Day

I love seeing the love other people had with this game. Oddly, I played the multiplayer most of all, often with my dad. Gotta say, though, the AI bots are ridicously cheap if you let them get the hand cannon (they would make absurd cross-map sniping shots from so far away you couldn't even hear the gunshot!).

Kind of funny that you...

...just say "references to the villain having sexual relations with his mother" about HotD: Overkill, when anyone who's beaten the game knows it goes much, much further than that. No other game has ever had me holding back laughter and vomit simultaneously.

I liked BFD

But I thought it was kind of a missed opportunity on Rare's part making the game revolve around movie parodies rather than, as would've been more appropriate and probably unique, parodying videogames -- Conker getting stuck in, like, CoD rather than a Saving Private Ryan spoof, etc. Maybe they're saving it for the sequel.

Disappointed...

...more wasn't said about Conker's BFD itself. The title definitely crossed a lot of barriers of the sophmoric kind back in its day, and challenged many preconceptions concerning the kind of content that could or could not work in game--an irony considering the (mostly) kiddie friendly system it was designed for. It was so controversial, in fact, Nintendo Power refused to even acknowledge its existence, and THQ had to publish the game in Europe.

Indeed, even Microsoft would heavily censor the title years later when it was rereleased on the Xbox. Hmm, censorship and games--guess that's another topic for another time.

shame

don't know if more Conker titles will be made, but i guess the same can be said about Banjo kazooie and other Rareware exclusives. The poor squirrel didnt get to be in Diddy Kong Racing DS (though more likely because microsoft/rare owned the character and not because nintendo hates conker). Animal mascots seem to be out of style these days though. Oh well, at least the fans will keep it alive....check out the infamous martin leung pay tribute!

Conker's Bad Fur Day

Remains my favorite N64 game. A drunk squirrel trying to find his way home. Nice pop culture references. As a kid you could get away with playing it when your parents walked in, unless there was dialogue. One of the best games of all time imo!